This is a basic outline of what Aussieplayers expects from its existing and prospective raiders, particularly for raids we are currently learning ('progression raids')

Character preparation

Everyone is expected to know how to play their character group environment and knows how to build and trait it appropriately. This will often involve different traits, rotations skills and even gear from solo play so players are expected to have a fair level of non-raid grouping experience before coming along to raids and have done appropriate research about their class (on class forums, or from speaking to other experienced players etc.) to be able to perform their classes' role in a raid environment. While we don't expect raid experience, per se, we do expect players participating in progression raids to know how to play their class in a group/raid environment with a high degree of competence. Raid leaders have enough to do without trying to micromanage and coach every individual player, and while we do our best to learn about other classes' skills, we don't necessarily have the ability to fine tune everyone's skill usage, traits, gear etc.

Specific raids may require specific classes to do certain jobs, try to read up on them as much as possible and be prepared with the right traits. Hopefully the raid leader will be on top of anything crucial too and can direct that specific traits be slotted if necessary but it is impossible for raid leaders to micromanage everything; players need to know what their job is and be prepared to perform it. Before raid time, please make sure that you have slotted the appropriate class traits and virtues for the upcoming raid so we don’t have to wait for you to run to a bard at the raid start time.

It’s also a really good idea to visit a vendor and repair all of your equipment beforehand so the raid doesn’t have to waste time waiting for players to run in and out if we have a few wipes.

Some classes will want to have separate equipment for raiding. Again, it is assumed that everyone knows what equipment is good for their character but in general it’s a good idea to boost in combat power regeneration and more morale in raids more than you normally would. Raid boss fights can go for much longer than other fights you might be used to so power regeneration (and conservation) are important. Also many raid mechanics involve AOE damage or aggro-ignoring attacks so even non-tank classes need to make sure they have sufficient morale to survive some heat.

Know the instance

We will be posting distilled strategy guides on the forum prior to every raid and it is the expectation that everyone will read these before coming in and have thought about what they can do to contribute to the strategy and mechanics outlined. It will greatly improve your ability to remember the mechanics of fights if you aren't just learning about them 5min before fighting. These posts will most likely contain links to more detailed guides, videos and forum posts, if you want to really understand the fights then you're encouraged to do your own research.

Gear

While it's definitely possible to make too-big a deal over gear, when we are doing top tier raid content it is important to have your character be adequately prepared to handle the requirements of the raid and gear is a part of that. Thus, it's important that we outline some minimum gear expectations. Please note that the below are minimums, players regularly raiding with us are expected to try as much as they can to work towards optimal gear for their characters to be able to contribute the most they can to the group.

Many of the pieces outlined below are crafted. If you have difficulty getting a hold of some of these pieces, please speak to us about that and we'll see what we can do to hook you up with crafters.

Here are some rough minimum requirements for what constitutes a 'raid ready' toon. All of the items below are available with a minimum of effort at end game:

Legendary items - Level 65 2nd ages in both slots. Some classes may be able to get away with a level 60 in their class item slot, but as this limits relic options it's genearally not advisable. It's not expected that you have the item fully 'finished' in terms of all the right legacies and all scrolls of empowerment (although you should be working towards this), but if your class has particularly indespensible legacies for raid purposes then you will be expected to have them on your items and at an appropriate level.

Legendary item relics - Class-appropriate tier 6 or extraordinary relics, preferably in all slots or at least working towards this. Relatively easy to obtain, especially at end-game through a few runs of the 'in your absence' 3-person instances.

Armour - Cass appropriate end-game armour. At a minimum, this should include 4 pieces of teal moria gear and a good helm/shoulders (the ones available from the vol 3 epic quest are a good start for many classes). Many classes (eg. hunters, captains, lore-masters, minstrels) will benefit from getting the helegrod or annuminas set, if that is the case for your class then doing so is of course highly recommended.

Jewelery - Top-tier, class appropriate crafted jewelery or better. Generally the critted aureate or in some cases Greenwood jewelery are very servicable pieces (top tier in some slots, for some classes). The new neck pieces from the Attack at Dawn/Frozen Crevasse skirmishes are large upgrades from any crafted piece for some classes (eg. tactical classes), it's recommended that you get a hold of one if that's the case for your class.

Pocket - At a minimum, the 'charm of' Mallhedrim rep pockets available from the Haunted Inn in Mirkwood. It's highly recommended that you get one of the Forsaken Inn pocket, which are a big step up from the charms and are effectively soloable.

Generally, if you follow the above then you should have no problem capping (650) at least your classes' primary stat and proably soft-capping (600) a secondary stat too, especially taking into account food and self-buffs. All classes, including 'squishy' ones, should aim to have at least 4,500 morale and preferably 5,000 unbuffed. DPS classes should ensure that they have enough power and ICPR to sustain a rotation over the course of a 10-15min fight. Tanks should be aiming for 7.5k+ morale with an appropriate level of mitigations. Healers are often expected to consume more power than they can regenerate (without outside help), so should have reasonable sized power pools to compensate for this - appx 4,000+.

The above requirements are not too onerous as suggested minimums. Much of the gear is craftable (as I said, ask for help if you don't know any crafters!) and little of it requires excessive grinding beyond what you'd normally do to get a toon to max level anyway. Obviously, exceptions can and will be made in particular circumstances, but these are our general expectations of a minimum gear level.

Virtues

Virtues are also important in raids. Ideally, no one should be going into a raid without at least a sum total of 40 on their virtues and if it's your main char it really should be closer to 50. Raid environments in particular hit players with types of damage that aren't all that commonly found in other instances, such as tactical and shadow damage. Given how hard it is to build up mitigations to these damage types in any other way, everyone should work on getting the following virtues up:

As part of our raid preparation, we will try to find out if a raid is heavy on any of the above types of damage so we can advise people to slot the appropriate virtue.

Also note that squishy classes in particular will gain a lot from slotting basic surviability virtues like Valor, Loyalty, Empathy and Innocence so don't think that just because you're a tactical class you just have to slot Wisdom and Idealism. Remember that in raids your stats are probably all going to be boosted by +50 thanks to your friendly neighbourhood cappy anyway.

People often don't like doing their virtues because of the perception that it's all grind. However, for all of the above except mercy you can get a lot of ranks by just doing fairly easy exploration deeds or quest deeds which you may have already done while levelling up. use Burg Zerg and the "10 easy ranks of empathy/innocence/valor" at Mmorsel to plan ahead. And in any event, a lot of the low level slayer deeds are very quick to knock over at level 65. There is a guide on how to get 9 ranks of mercy (which maxes its tactical defence component) relatively easily in this thread.

Consumables

Consumables are crucial in a raid environment and can often make the difference between dying and surviving. I’m not sure how familiar people is with all of the different types of consumable so I’m going to go into them in a little bit of detail – sorry if this is all obvious to you! Every character should carry a large number (30+) of each of the following consumables, except as noted otherwise:

Morale and power potions. Players should ideally carry the steeped potions which restore 1100-1200 morale or power. These can be obtained from barter vendors in Mirkwood and Enedwaith for bronze feathers or silver tokens (1:1 ratio) or made by a scholar. In a pinch you could grab them from the auction house but they tend to be very expensive (100-200s per potion) or the skirmish vendor (369 skirmish marks for a stack of 5).

Curative potions. Everyone should carry a stack the steeped level of each type of curative potion (disease, wound etc.). The best place to get these from is the 'healer' vendors in Mirkwood or Enedwaith (they cost about 15s each). They can be also obtained from barter vendors in Mirkwood and Enedwaith for bronze feathers or silver tokens (1:1 ratio) or made by a scholar.

Cooked food. Cooked food gives a short term boost to your in and out of combat morale and power regeneration. Non-critted food gives a 5 minute boost while the critted food gives a 10 minute boost. Given that food can't be eaten in-combat, cooked food should be eaten just before a boss fight and because boss fights normally go for more than 5 minutes, you should always use critted food even if it is of a lower tier than some non-critted food tat you have. Ideally you should use Lothlorian Waybread but if you can’t get it then Rack of Lamb with Mint Sauce is a decent substitute. Either get a friendly cook to craft this for you or buy it on the auction house (a stack of 50 critted lothlorian waybread goes for about 5-7g normally).

Trail Food. Trail food gives a long duration (20-30min) boost to one of your stats. Non-critted level 60 food will give you +36 to a stat for 20min while critted food will give you a +55 boost to a stat for 30min. This food is a great way to boost one of your stats and given its long duration, you should aim to have at least some non-critted trail food up for the entire duration of a raid. Personally I find the mushy peas (vitality) a really good one to have, any class can benefit from an extra 150 morale (unless you’re already capped in vitality). In my experience, this can be a little scarce on the auction house so find a cook and give them the ingredients to make it for you – save any woolly mint you can find to increase their crit chance.

Fortifying food. While not as critical as the previous two types of food, this food can be very useful in raids instances because raids usually are filled with adverse state effects. The level 50 fortifying food gives +1100 to your fear, wound, disease or poison resist rating for 20min. It’s worth carrying this food where there will be effects of the appropriate kind (eg. wound food for the wound wing). Again get a cook to make it for you or look on the AH to see if there’s some there.

Hope token (technically called Edhelharn Tokens). It is highly advisable for every member of the raid to carry at least a couple +5 hope tokens. Hope tokens are used to either offset dread of party members after wipes or to counter dread effects put out by bosses. Many bosses in raids have scripted hope wipes (or players will get in-combat resurrections and come up with a high amount of dread) and given the 15min cooldown on hope tokens, it is important for many members of the party to have tokens so they can pop them when asked. Hope tokens also only apply fellowship-wide in a raid, so usually two tokens will need to be popped each time they get used. Any of the +5 tokens are acceptable (from brilliant up), although to counter the gloom on specific long boss fights, the longer duration higher tier/critted ones should be used to avoid having to reapply them during a fight. These can be made by a jeweller or found on the auction house (they’re usually pretty pricey unfortunately).

Lore scrolls. These scrolls give moderate boosts to a fellowship’s offence and defence ratings and should be used throughout the whole raid. Given the long cooldowns on them it’s useful for each member to have a supply of at least 5 scrolls. These are made by scholars and usually can’t be found on the auction house (because, bizzarely, they tend to sell for less than what the base materials used to make them sell on the AH). In terms of raw material cost (using AH prices) these scrolls cost about 200s each to make so let your raid leader direct people to use them to avoid having two people override each other’s scrolls.

Repair anvil. This is not something that everyone should (or even could) carry but I thought I’d put it here because people might not know it exists. On reaching friend standing with the Men of Bree (weaponsmith) or Thorins hall (metalsmith), weapon and metalsmiths can get an artisan tier recipe to create this bind on acquire item which can put a repair anvil down anywhere, even inside an instance (it isn’t like the Guardian’s tinker summon skill which can only be used at campfires). This allows the entire raid to repair their items for 5 minutes – the normal version costs more than a normal repair but the critted version lets you repair for normal costs. The anvil has a 1 day cooldown. It’s useful to have at least one member of the raid with an anvil in case of multiple wipes!

Legendary item titles

Many, if not all, mobs and bosses inside raids have very high resistance or complete immunity to common damage. Thus it is important to apply a damage-type scroll to your legendary weapon if you are ever doing non-tactical damage. A full list of titles and where to get them can be found here. Which title is best depends on the raid. For the current raid (Ost Dunhoth) you’re best off with either Beleriand + Dead.

You should also have a title for your class item. Melee classes should go with either +600 melee defence or +600 tactical defence, and given the prevalence of AOE tactical damage in raids, non-melee classes will usually benefit from +600 tactical defence as well.